FWIS3

I can't help but to make parallels on your post about Unpaid Washington Interns, Price of Admission and all that.

Sigma_Orionis wrote:I can't help but to make parallels on your post about Unpaid Washington Interns, Price of Admission and all that.

There seems to be unspoken code that one must suffer and pay dues to allowed into the club. Not matter what profession or arena there seems to be that aspect to human nature. It usually doesn't sit well with those who feel as if it is being used to victimize them rather than earn a badge of membership.

SciFiFisher wrote:There seems to be unspoken code that one must suffer and pay dues to allowed into the club. Not matter what profession or arena there seems to be that aspect to human nature. It usually doesn't sit well with those who feel as if it is being used to victimize them rather than earn a badge of membership.

Yup, one of the reasons why I'm virtually a Misanthropist.......

Time to beat this dead horse a bit more....

From the New York Times...

Mannequins Give Shape to a Venezuelan Fantasy

See, Sigma, the reason we get along fine is I saw that article this morning and thought "who's going to post it first, me or Sigma?"

I've gotta say btw, the whole thing strikes me as beyond fucked up. Especially this:

"I say that inner beauty doesn’t exist. That’s something that unpretty women invented to justify themselves.”

Ya know, as an actually pretty girl I worry way more in my life about my inner beauty, and so far that has opened far more doors. You can actually do something about one but not the other and I don't need to fret about one running out in 20 years, ya know?

Also question for you Sigma, do guys in Venezuela actually WANT women who look anorexic-except-for-their-giant-boobs or is it something that women drive? Because I've noticed that happens a surprisingly large amount in cultures- that men don't care about how women dress and look, but often the standard is set by other women so that's what they go for.

I will chime in. I think men contribute to the issue about what is or is not considered beauty. We talk about how we don't like stick figure women with no real curves but the women who win beauty pageants and get the attention are all too often stick figure women with no real curves. or they have a stick figure with a cleavage. Kate Moss, Twiggy, and others exemplified the androgynous look.

Also, look at what you see in the press. Male actors, politicians, and other famous men are often featured dating younger and skinny women. The message seems to clearly be: If you are a man then you must have a skinny stick figure woman with cleavage.

Women contribute because they are competitive. If the competition who looks like a stick figure with cleavage is winning then by god they will do whatever it takes to win this competition. Bring on the diet pills, the liposuction, and the gastric stapling!! Don't worry about cleavage.... We can fix that too!!

Of course, as individuals we all go WTF? This isn't how it should be. Then someone starts competing and the next thing you know we have chosen another stick figure woman with cleavage to represent our idea of beauty again.

The good news is that it may be just a passing fad. The whole stick figure thing really got started in the 1960's and we might see it start to fade as society changes tastes.

Rommie wrote:See, Sigma, the reason we get along fine is I saw that article this morning and thought "who's going to post it first, me or Sigma?"

Well, I thought: "Rommie has to see this". So: yeah, I'd say we're on the same page on this matter

Rommie wrote:I've gotta say btw, the whole thing strikes me as beyond fucked up. Especially this:

"I say that inner beauty doesn’t exist. That’s something that unpretty women invented to justify themselves.”

I wholeheartedly agree, FUBAR is a rather subtle way to describe it.

And the worse part is that the idiot who said that (whom BTW I think is a major asshole) manages the Miss Venezuela Pageant and has direct influence on who gets accepted and how should that someone should look like.

Unfortunately, what he says SELLS.

Dirty Little Secret: the Miss Venezuela franchise is owned by a major corporation here, the owner of that corporation is the brother of the owner of the corporation that owns the company I work for (and until they split a couple of years ago, they used to be the same organization). As a matter of fact: a former first runner up for the Miss Venezuela Pageant works at the company I work in (and the Wikipedia entry is wrong, it's NOT a marketing company)

Rommie wrote:Ya know, as an actually pretty girl I worry way more in my life about my inner beauty, and so far that has opened far more doors. You can actually do something about one but not the other and I don't need to fret about one running out in 20 years, ya know?

It also might have to do with the fact that you tend to use the grey goo between your ears for something useful?

Rommie wrote:Also question for you Sigma, do guys in Venezuela actually WANT women who look anorexic-except-for-their-giant-boobs or is it something that women drive? Because I've noticed that happens a surprisingly large amount in cultures- that men don't care about how women dress and look, but often the standard is set by other women so that's what they go for.

Your question is answered in part by Fisher's post. IMHO it's primarily driven by women for other women, but men passively (I say passively because nobody actually talks about it) help as well.

The giant cleavage craze started in the late 80s. Traditionally, men here preferred women with an attractive derrière (just like Spaniards and people in the Middle-East). So, with the current craze, The ideal is women who have both an attractive derrière, cleavage and also an anorexic waist. However, I must say that women who don't "qualify" do not seem to have any problems finding guys though.

Funny note about the mannequins: In the inner city, mannequins for women's clothing tend to have huge derrières, in the more "affluent" commercial districts they tend have cleavage.

Yes, I edited it, didn't like saying BOOB. HAPPY?

This thread is a PITA.

FZR1KG wrote:This thread is a PITA.

it took you 2 months to come up with that?

Zee works in mysterious ways.........

I pondered it over the 5 weeks we sailed, refined it in the weeks after and found time to post it recently.

Zee: always the craftsman

Sigma_Orionis wrote:Zee: always the craftsman

measure twice. Cut once.

SciFiFisher wrote:

Sigma_Orionis wrote:Zee: always the craftsman

measure twice. Cut once.

Especially if you're a mohel... ...

And now, the thread grave-digging award goes to......


And now, an uplifting (As Duke Nukem would say: damn I'm good) update.

As I drove to the office I saw on the highway an ad for Breast Implants that proudly mentioned they were made in Germany, the fun part is that in the lower left corner of the advert was the logo of a bank that would gladly lend the user money for the operation.....

Sigma_Orionis wrote:As I drove to the office I saw on the highway an ad for Breast Implants that proudly mentioned they were made in Germany, the fun part is that in the lower left corner of the advert was the logo of a bank that would gladly lend the user money for the operation.....

Well, Angela Merkel does have very nice breasts.

Guess what? they have a website

And of course a Facebook Page

Sigma_Orionis wrote:Guess what? they have a website

And of course a Facebook Page

Of course they do. All serious marketers do these days.

Sigma, I am checking in to inform you that I am 60km off your coast yet you'd never be able to tell- no ferry for a few years now since they discovered they were using it to smuggle drugs.

Except that is for the beer- the standard here is Polar (with a polar bear on the label, native to Venezuela). Y'all have good beer.

No Ferry? BIG Surprise.

Never been to Curaçao, a few years ago there were tons of ads here promoting tourism there, not anymore, I wonder why

Yeah, the beer is good.

Yeah, they do have a bunch of Venezuelan boats that come in w produce for the market every morning though. And upon arriving in Amsterdam I had the most extensive screening I'd ever had in the airport- passport check and screening straight off the plane, the usual official to enter the EU, then our bags were screened yet again after picking them up on the belt (note, pretty much none of this happens normally here). I guess I now know how and who smuggles drugs into the Netherlands.

Also interesting, Polar beer in the smaller 8oz bottles was apparently as of last month brewed and bottled not in Venezuela, but Florida (the big ones are still from down there). Guess you have more capitalist sellouts down there than you admit!

Rommie wrote:Yeah, they do have a bunch of Venezuelan boats that come in w produce for the market every morning though. And upon arriving in Amsterdam I had the most extensive screening I'd ever had in the airport- passport check and screening straight off the plane, the usual official to enter the EU, then our bags were screened yet again after picking them up on the belt (note, pretty much none of this happens normally here). I guess I now know how and who smuggles drugs into the Netherlands.

Hmmmmmm I could not even imagine how that happens

Rommie wrote:Also interesting, Polar beer in the smaller 8oz bottles was apparently as of last month brewed and bottled not in Venezuela, but Florida (the big ones are still from down there). Guess you have more capitalist sellouts down there than you admit!

Meh, the President of Polar Industries (which happens to be a Major Food Conglomerate here) is a well known counter-revolutionary, lackey of you evil gringos

More of the same, this time by the BBC

Rommie wrote:And upon arriving in Amsterdam I had the most extensive screening I'd ever had in the airport- passport check and screening straight off the plane, the usual official to enter the EU, then our bags were screened yet again after picking them up on the belt (note, pretty much none of this happens normally here). I guess I now know how and who smuggles drugs into the Netherlands.

in 2002, coming back from Bonaire (close to Curacao) a 23 year old woman on our plane fell sick, when one of the 66 plastic balls filled with cocaine she had swallowed in Ecuador burst, causing our plane to aim for an emergency landing in Dublin. despite 2 doctors on board who were flying back from a congress, she died within 15 minutes. the plane then abandoned the approach to Dublin and flew on to Amsterdam with a corpse in a blanket in the back row.

the ABC's were (are?) a main connection for the Columbian drug mafia.

Morrolan wrote:

Rommie wrote:And upon arriving in Amsterdam I had the most extensive screening I'd ever had in the airport- passport check and screening straight off the plane, the usual official to enter the EU, then our bags were screened yet again after picking them up on the belt (note, pretty much none of this happens normally here). I guess I now know how and who smuggles drugs into the Netherlands.

in 2002, coming back from Bonaire (close to Curacao) a 23 year old woman on our plane fell sick, when one of the 66 plastic balls filled with cocaine she had swallowed in Ecuador burst, causing our plane to aim for an emergency landing in Dublin. despite 2 doctors on board who were flying back from a congress, she died within 15 minutes. the plane then abandoned the approach to Dublin and flew on to Amsterdam with a corpse in a blanket in the back row.

the ABC's were (are?) a main connection for the Columbian drug mafia.

Well that's fucking scary. And now that I think about the geography quite unsurprising.

They likely do still try it- the screening was simple metal detector stuff, and so far as I could see they were only screening the luggage checked in that was in big bags, etc etc. If you can find naive 23 year old girls the $1million payoff is probably still worth it.